


all of these colors they keep me just spiralling

by graveyardorgarden



Category: True Detective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 11:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3648330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graveyardorgarden/pseuds/graveyardorgarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>yellow is his least favourite, it tastes like food poisoning from cheap mexican food, like group therapy sessions at north shore, like the air at the crime scene where they encountered the antlered young woman.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of these colors they keep me just spiralling

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy. if you would have asked me three days ago if i would ever write a TD fic i probably would have said no. but this just came to me and well... here it is. there's so much i wanna say (mostly because i'm an inexperienced fic writer and i'm kind of scared), this is my second ever attempt at serious fanfiction and english is not my first language so... be gentle? (please point out incorrect spelling/grammar though!!! not a better way to learn than from your mistakes) also i'm not american and have never set my foot outside of europe so i've just assumed that things like fibre-fur clothes, late night nature documentaries and free psychiatrist sessions at schools are a thing on the other side of the pond as well. if not... well, there's not much to do at this point. 
> 
> also inspiration came to me from so many places, but i just want to mention the poem _Poppies in October_ by Sylvia Plath that kind of sparked the original idea, and the song _Colours Colliding_ by Polly Scattergood, from which i stole the title (and americanized the spelling...)

there’s red, like poppy fields he’s never actually seen in person, just in well used, outdated school books or late night reruns of nature documentaries he’s woken up to, breaking into static on a motel tv screen, somewhere a lot of or a few miles down the highway, depending on how much he had to drink. red like the blood contrasting the snow when he fell over and cut his hand open; his father just snorting, washing it a little too roughly while he tried his best not to cry. red red red like the dress claire wore four days after they first met, moments before the first time they slept with each other. red like a lipstick he can barely remember the wearer of, her embrace and soft voice lulling him to sleep sometime before the cabin, the cold, the constant longing for some sunshine. red like a tricycle he’s trying his best to forget but that seem to have been etched into the insides of his eyelids. 

green is surprisingly comforting. the walls of the kitchen were light blue but the room always felt green. maybe it was the pea mush they tried to feed sophia, maybe it was the strong feeling of being at peace that used to hit him when he walked in there. like the sunken in armchair in the corner of the school library, like his college dorm room once he managed to scare his room mate away, like his truck heading down the highway in 70 miles per hour, in the direction of nowhere, anywhere. even dinners at the hart household have a slight tint of green; he tries to convince himself that it’s just the broccoli but deep down he knows it goes further than that. the light blue kitchen with windows looking out over the bend in the road had originally been deep green, like an emerald or the alaskan forests. it quickly turned lime as the amount of empty bottles on the countertop grew, almost as quickly as the cigarette butts in the overflowing ashtray at the table. by the time he found the note explaining that claire had fled to california and left him with a house to sell, it had turned almost entirely yellow. 

yellow is his least favourite, it tastes like food poisoning from cheap mexican food, like group therapy sessions at north shore, like the air at the crime scene where they encountered the antlered young woman. once his high school teacher forced him to see the child psychiatrist available at the school once a month, her office was the same shade of yellow as her cardigan, her eyes were light brown and her hair blonde, even her voice felt yellow when she tried to get him to speak. the hour passed by and she scheduled him a new appointment the next month, wrote it down for him on a yellow post it note which he crumbled in his hand and threw into the first trash can he saw. he actually considered to consider going, but his father’s truck broke down and he got stuck in the cabin for three weeks in a row. after that he made sure to always skip school the first tuesday of the month, just in case she’d see him and make him come back. still to this day he can wake up with a slightly yellow taste in the back of his mouth at tuesdays and when january the third falls on a tuesday for the first time since _before_ it’s all gray with a hint of yellow and it’s the fucking ugliest color he’s ever seen. 

most other colors are ok. purple a little too sweet on his tongue, pink reminds him a little bit too much of claire’s idea of how to decorate a baby girl’s room. though most days pink are just the colour of the sunset, the sensation of cold water hitting his body in the shower, the lonely carton of grapefruit juice in his humming refrigerator. orange is work, watery coffee, marty leaving breakfast for him at his desk. dull, but close enough to the brown tones of his undercover days, powered by drugs, beer and the occasional fast food meal. the thrills of danger and the constant tension in the back of his mind; “what if they realize who i actually am?” he was never really scared of getting exposed, it was more of a way to pass the time, one more thing to keep on his mind instead of death and doom and the way his daughter’s eyes closed for the last time. he can’t remember many details of the last two years, but they’re a warm brown, comforting but destructive. light blue helps him clear his mind, it’s the color of emptiness and the sky and meditation. of bible verses and chain smoking instead of sleeping. marty is turquoise, mostly. he’s never met a turquoise person before, the perfect blend of comforting green and clear  blue but also something different. something inviting and warm and good intentioned that he can’t ever remember feeling before. when he was a kid and someone asked, he used to say that turquoise was his favourite color.   

and then there’s deep blue, starry night skies or windbreakers belonging to the state of louisiana. apart from them louisiana lacks the deep blues of alaska, the seemingly endless nights, sunsets at 3 pm, the fibre-fur coat full of holes that belonged to his father. blue tones that these days he can’t reach without downing cough syrup or two pills more than he actually should. blues that blend days into each other, blurring the edges of his vision and making his thoughts slow down to a controllable pace. he misses the real blues, the non artificial ones of the north, a lot more than he would ever allow himself to admit. once a week, at least, there’s the thought of getting in his car and driving through state after state until he’s back to the place where his body is filled with a comfortable hatred, a longing to get away, move on, continue, rather than to stop moving and decay on the spot. away from tricycles and yellows, from dinners with the hart family, away from paper thin windbreakers and back into the cold, where a wet blanket of snow is covering the ground for the most part of the year and there's another one covering his mind with a longing for warmth. every time he changes his mind and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s scared to find his father still alive or find out that he has died. 


End file.
